The following list presents a number of suggestions to followin order to develop an effective plan:

Your plan MUST be driven from the Strategic Plan for the College.

You MUST Setup a Team before beginning to develop a STEM Pathways Plan.

You MUST Complete an Assessment of your current STEM programs before beginning to develop a STEM Pathways Plan. The output of the Assessment is a prioritized list of recommendations to increase competitiveness for funding and/or meet STEM Strategic Goals that map to the College's Strategic Plan.

Your planning team should continue to refer to the examples in the STEM Pathways Guide for ideas to implement in the detailed Work Plan in the STEM Pathways Plan Template.

Your entire planning team should participate in the development of this plan.

Team members should also be encouraged to gather feedback from the group they represent (i.e. faculty) throughout the development process and bring this feedback back to the planning team.

You may want to have the plan reviewed by an outside group before finalizing your plan.

Remember that planning is an iterative process. This plan will help you begin to move forward. The plan will likely change over time as you implement, learn, monitor for impacts, re-assess, and refine your actions.

Questions to Consider

In developing a plan, consider these questions:

What is the vision for STEM in your school and how does this vision relate to the overall strategy/vision/mission of the college?

What identified needs relating to Outreach & Career Exploration does the team want to address?

What identified needs relating to Foundational Knowledge & Skills does the team want to address?

What identified needs relating to Certificate and Degree Programs does the team want to address?

What will be the costs related to implementation of this plan and how will/may these costs be covered?

Are there any other barriers (other than cost) that need to be overcome in order to address the identified needs? If so, how will these be overcome?

STEM Pathways Planning Template

Use this template to document the plan that your team develops and share the final plan with all members and outside individuals who may inquire for various reasons. Learn more about possibleFunding Sources.